


Something Great: The Bluest Blaze

by quickwest



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quickwest/pseuds/quickwest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What makes Iris love Barry the way she does?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Great: The Bluest Blaze

“Don’t close yourself because you’re going to miss out one something great,” Barry advised, but it was easier said than done because her heart was closed off from the one person whom Iris knew could make her happy.

When his gaze burned into hers, she felt her world stop like it always had done, and she had to muster up enough courage to look back at him. It felt like she was left open to new scars, new aches, but desperate for more laughter, more promises, more forever, and Iris knew that it could be hers.

Barry always looked at her with that stare that twinkled with excitement, glimmered with hope, and burned with a desire that left her an ache wanting more. She was privy to the fact that he tried to hide it sometimes. He came back from Earth-2 more broken than anything which surprised her at first. She thought it was because of Jay, but there was something more.

“Wait, we were married?” Iris choked out.

“Mhmm,” Barry nodded, and she could see it.

It was a fleeting and involuntary falter, a misstep for him when he nodded and focused on telling the rest of the story. She wanted to address it, but she couldn’t and instead thought about it over and over again, replayed every single detail, memorized the details to pick apart as if she were writing a news story. And if she could investigate on anything more, she would focus on Barry’s eyes.

There was something inexplicably beautiful to her about looking at someone who knew everything about her and still manage to see the whole world as a better place. He knew the good things, her favorite food, the songs that would make her happy enough to belt around the house or sad enough to cry upon hearing the first strum of the guitar. But he also knew the worst parts; the dark and scary parts that she didn’t want to admit existed.

When she got in a fight with her dad that was so bad that she wished that she had a mom who could understand her better instead of a father who was so overprotective that it was overbearing and she just wanted to scream. Barry knew the part of her that regretted ever wishing that.

“I was just so, so mad, Bear,” she said, and she was still shaking from it.

Barry watched her pace around her room, biting the inside her cheek while she rambled on and on about how terrible of a person she was.

“You’re not a terrible person, Iris,” he said, resting his hands on her shoulders to get her to stop moving and take a breath, “we’re all human, so stop punishing yourself for that.”

Validation; she didn’t know that that was what she sought from him, but that’s what his eyes gave her. Her wild heart couldn’t calm down from this even though she tried to get it to. She sought for the validation again when she faltered in college.

When she, as an undergrad, bombed a psychology exam and just wanted to drink her sorrows away like most of her peers had done when she sought comfort from Barry. It terrified her the way she froze up and felt her mind empty itself of any knowledge and could only focus on the pencil in her hand and the loud ticking on the clock. Then the anxiety stabbed her, telling her that maybe this was all a mistake, and that she didn’t know what she wanted out of life or why she was in college.

She felt vulnerable and so out of it. Joe raised her to never believe that she was less than anyone or that she couldn’t do what she put her mind to, and even though she would have to work twice as hard to get half of what her peers got, she knew that she could. But it didn’t feel that way anymore.

So she found herself on Skype blubbering to Barry, and she felt like an idiot about it later, but she couldn’t stop the tears from coming out. When college took its toll, it affected her hard, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it was one exam, Iris. I promise, it’s going to be okay,” he assured her. Iris wondered how he could still manage to make her feel better with that penetrating stare over a video call.

And then it was over for the both of them, and it felt like a relief. Barry was the second person she hugged after the graduation ceremony; her dad beat Barry to it. But Barry had her locked in an embrace, feeling proud for the both of them. And she could see that because of the way his eyes sparkled. Iris could see that he was genuinely happy for her, maybe more happy than she was about it. They were both ready to move on to the next stage of their lives; hers being grad school and his being a new job at CCPD.

When Barry decided that he wanted to be a CSI, she crinkled her eyebrows and tore her gaze away from her laptop.

“Everyone deserves the truth especially when something bad happens. And I’m going to give them closure so one day, maybe I can find mine,” he shrugged and sat on the coffee table in front of her.

She knew not to feel pity for him because not only did he hate it, but there was a light that went on. A fire ignited, the bluest blaze behind the green that propelled him forward every day. And it never died, even after he found out the truth because there was always something else; a new villain, a challenge, a threat to his happiness, safety, and everyone he loved.

He had always been passionate about everything, and Iris loved that about him. When he spoke for his father’s innocence as a child and even his own when everyone around him called him crazy, Barry was determined because he knew that he wasn’t wrong. For a while, Iris could never understand why she believed him.

Everyone else around them didn’t. Barry’s bullies said so when they were pushing him into lockers, pushing the books out of his hands and calling him freak, crazy, or a liar. When she tried to help him pick himself back up, Iris saw the pain in his eyes, a stab at his confidence, and an overwhelming sense of guilt because he blamed himself that as an 11-year-old, he couldn’t save his mom or his dad.

“It’s okay, Barry,” Iris said, grabbing his hand, and she managed to form a smile for him. It was a weak one, but it was enough for him to have some grasp of hope.

The same glimmer of hope that was there for her when she told him about her date with her editor. Iris knew that it was time to move on, she finally felt ready to so. She noticed the falter again that seemed taken aback and a little hurt, but he masked that look, shielding its identity as if it was a superhero. Then he moved closer to her, taking her space only to fill it with warmth from the chilling pain that hit her, stabbing guilt for wanting to move forward with her life.

“You’re going to miss out on something great,” Barry said.

She mustered up enough courage to look up at him and believe him. Even then, what she saw was the man who could see everything in her, whose faith in her never fell, and whose life had more meaning because he had her. Iris knew that she had her something great.


End file.
